Video: Google's New Sea-Cooled Data Center - <AUTHOR> http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/05/24/video-inside-googles-newest-data-center/ <comment><USER2> Is there any reason this isn't more common? Why aren't more US datacenters in the Chicago metro area where the air is dry and cool, and trillions of gallons of frigid water is available? The geography is mild and natural disasters that effect datacenters are basically unheard of.

It seems silly that so many datacenters are in central Texas, where not only are tornados and tropical storms fairly common, but it's hot and humid for 7 months out of the year.

<comment><USER3> One reason I have personal experience with is the massive regulatory headache which accompanies any project that relies using a lot of fresh water from a navegable river or lake. (Google "waters of the United States"). Invariably you get to deal with both the U.S. EPA and Army Corps of Engineers, the Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts, plus whatever state regulations are out there, e.g. CEQA in California. This process can take literally decades and cost millions of dollars: environmental consulting, EIS/EIR, Section 7 & 404 consultations, take permitting, habitat / species conservation plan, mitigation, etc.

I'm not against preventing companies from trashing what natural resources we have left. At the same time, I can see why they'd be reluctant to go that route.

<comment><USER2> Very interesting. It doesn't surprise me that a vast array of permits would be required, as it should be. We all know how companies will treat water resources if they're not scrutinized. I do see water cooling as a potential mitigation of large quantities of CO2. The need for datacenters will only grow, and we need to find energy-efficient ways of cooling them. Perhaps sticking to seawater in this case just makes more sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Who remembers google's patent from a couple of years ago for floating data centers? Using the sea to cool it was a big part of that idea, alongside tidal power. I'm kinda disappointed to see that this isn't the complete realisation of that stuff, but its still a move in the right direction.

Original patent link: [http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Se...](http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220080209234%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20080209234&RS=DN/20080209234)

I wonder if you could start a tropical reef around the outlets?

<comment><USER5> If it's anything like power plants in the US, then there are restrictions on the allowed deltaT above ambient, and for good reason. For example in California, the San Onofre Nuclear plant was found to significantly impact the local fisheries by killing fish larvae and damaging kelp forests, and I believe the deltaT is less than 2 degrees C. (Though I'm not sure if this is at the heat exchanger or at the diffuser head). At Morro Bay (also in California) there is a power plant built long before such restrictions existed and it dumps cooling water straight into the surf zone. Apparently, intertidal species (muscles, snails, etc) can be found there that are typically found much further south. I can personally report that it makes the surfing much more pleasant, but the heated water is generally considered a form of pollution due to the negative impacts on native species.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Or Datacenter-Heated Sea, depending on your perspective.

<comment><USER7> There is a tempering station that dissipates the heat from the water before it is released back into the sea.

<comment><USER8> Then what advantage is there to sea water over a loop?

<comment><USER9> The heated water is tempered with cold sea water so it's closer to the temperature of the gulf when returned. This prevents a hot water plume at the outlet, which can cause environmental problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "It used to be a paper mill". Now its a data center.

Great to see factories evolving

</comment><comment><USER11> This could not happen in Canada due to its geography. Most of our inhabitants are sitting right by the border with the USA yet in the North we could easily cool buildings for free with our weather and water.

</comment><comment><USER12> Remember when the craze was to build water cooled gaming systems? I have a feeling some of those people ended up working on this project at google.

<comment><USER13> You can also use water for a quiet(er) PC rather than strictly an overclocked one. It's not that expensive nor labor-intensive to convert a regular system to a watercooled one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The video looks a little bit like the open compute project video from facebook .

Isn't pumping so much water through the pipes less efficient compared to facebooks method of cooling air down by spraying the water ?

See fb method at <http://livestre.am/wBjp>

<comment><USER15> That only works if the air you are cooling down is very dry. It then adds a bunch of humidity to the air, so it couldn't really go back to the DC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> it also seemed to be a great idea to use outside cool water for "free" cooling of nuclear power plants. Happens to be not such a good idea after many years of that [ab]use. While on the global scale the datacenters itself don't have the impact yet, it will definitely affect the water ecosystem local to the datacenter. There is no free lunch. Though Googlers may be under impression that there is.</comment>


Parasite Is Really a Micro-Jellyfish - <AUTHOR> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/parasite-really-micro-jellyfish-180957326/?no-ist <comment><USER2> This is a, not new but very interesting, theory that appeared first time in 'Nature' in the late 90's if I remember correctly. The theory received more support later. In retrospective, is easy to make the conection when you see it the first time, but nobody knew it before. This was a really shocking idea for many or us.

Myxozoans are mysterious aquatic organisms causing serious mortality in fishes and millionary economic damages sometimes. They have a very complex life cycle with multinucleated plasmodia, sporoblast phases and two different types of spores, one for attacking worms and other for fishes.

Only one type of spores have the polar capsules, and they are exacty like nematocysts. At microscope you can see the coiled filaments inside, easily fired with urea in lab. They are used in host atachment before to release a motile ameboid form.

A similar history happened also with the similar Microspora, a classic phylum of protozoans parasites of animals, currently in fungi.

</comment><comment><USER3> " _Myxozoans still have a complex structure that looks like the stinging cells of jellyfish, called a nematocyst, that Cartwright calls 'little firing weapons.'_"

So, what do they use the nematocysts for?

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra Why do they wonder so much after that tasmanian devil's cancer? There you have a contagious disease that's not bacteria or virus but canine.

There's also a culture of some woman's cells that is used for I don't remember what. Makes it a new genus of Homo!

Or not. I think we can conclude that genetic similarity is not everything and such derivates should be considered separatrely.

<comment><USER4> Hela cells are don't actually closely match human cells any more. Genetically chimps are much closer to humans than that cell line. [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/famous-hela- human-...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/famous-hela-human-cell- line-gets-its-dna-sequenced/)

"Steinmetz's team confirmed that HeLa cells contain one extra version of most chromosomes, with up to five copies of some. Many genes were duplicated even more extensively, with four, five or six copies sometimes present, instead of the usual two. Furthermore, large segments of chromosome 11 and several other chromosomes were reshuffled like a deck of cards, drastically altering the arrangement of the genes"</comment></comment>


A simple script to catch up on your favourite image subreddits - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pomax/reddit-image-catch-up <comment><AUTHOR> I'd been looking for a simple catch up script, but all I've been able to find are really old Python scripts that either don't work with "new" Reddit, or only work for Python 2.7, so after trying to get a few of those to work and constantly hitting API or Python3 differences, I figured I might as well just crank out a simple script using Node.js instead (mostly because I wanted to keep dependencies local, which for Python basically means writing a pipenv based project, which makes things super unfun for the casual "I just want to catch up on my images~" users).

It works well enough, to the point where I can just have it run as a cron job every hour and have another util watch its download dir, to move pictures to the dir that my digital picture frame (which is just a monitor and a raspi running "whatever runs feh") loads content from. So maybe others on HN might find this useful, too.</comment>


Brad Feld: It's So Hard When Contemplated In Advance And So Easy When You Do It - <AUTHOR> http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2010/01/its-so-hard-when-contemplated-in-advance-and-so-easy-when-you-do-it.html

<comment><USER2> I suggest regular exercise as a part of any entrepreneur's daily routine, not so much for the physical benefit, but for the mental benefit. I recently lost 50 pounds and I have to say it's the best thing for me physically AND professionally. It builds up dedication, gives you time to think, and makes you see that hard work pays off. You won't lose a pound the first day, or sometimes even the first week. Once you do see things paying off, it usually motivates you a lot more. Applying these same principles to starting a company is one hell of a motivator.

<comment><USER3> Consistency is the most difficult part; burn-out is the enemy of consistency, and the bedfellow of overzealous beginnings. I know a lot of people who tried to go from zero to 60 in a week, and after 7 days straight of running & weightlifting, they gave up for another six months.

Generally, the longer it takes you to lose weight, the longer it will stay off. If you're losing lots of pounds over the first day, or week, or even month, be careful of burnout!

What finally worked for me was starting with 2 days of cardio per week for 2 weeks, then 2 days of cardio + 2 days of weightlifting per week for 2 weeks, then 3 cardio + 2 weights for 2 weeks, then 3 cardio + 3 weights for 2 weeks. After those 60 days, I had a routine that felt comfortable and was more difficult to avoid than maintain!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ah, "Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". My all-time favourite read.

Funnily enough, the headline reads like the opposite of any worthwhile start- up endeavour. For things like exercise, bureaucracy, paperwork, doing the washing, shaving, the headline holds.

But for good-to-great software that needs to be shipped, too? "It's so easy when contemplated in advance, and so hard when you do it."

<comment><USER5> I just finished the book yesterday (for the first time) and don't know why I waited this long. I highly recommend it also.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is so true for me when learning a new programming language or framework. It was hard for me get started when I was trying to learn Django. But once I started doing the tutorials, it was easy.

Mastering something is a different story though.</comment>


Continuous Integration in the Cloud: Comparing Travis, Circle and Codeship - <AUTHOR> https://strongloop.com/strongblog/node-js-travis-circle-codeship-compare/

<comment><USER2> Founder of CircleCI here. Some notes on this:

CircleCI does have free and public Open Source builds: [http://blog.circleci.com/a-step-into-open- source/](http://blog.circleci.com/a-step-into-open-source/). We allow you run three concurrent open source builds for free, more than anyone else. Also, we allow larger teams to pay to run more builds, which can be really valuable for large projects.

CircleCI is basically built for large teams, for example Shopify: [https://circleci.com/stories/shopify](https://circleci.com/stories/shopify). There's a few major features that support that. For example, large teams typically have tons of integration/browser tests: we allow you to SSH and VNC into the build to figure out why browser tests are failing. This is a critical feature for large teams.

Similarly, parallelism is built into CircleCI from the ground up - we've spent a ton of time making the really simple and automatic. We can automatically split and load-balance test suites across dozens of machines, and we have huge customers using this to reduce multi-hour test suites to run in minutes. This is much more support than anyone else, if it's even possible you have to go through a long process to manually enable parallelization.

We have support for GitHub Enterprise in our Enterprise product (which you can run in AWS VPC). See [https://circleci.com/enterprise](https://circleci.com/enterprise) for details.

For small teams, we don't actually start at $50 - we start at free. If you're less than 5 people, you likely won't pay anything to use CircleCI. The free version is fully featured and lets you run 1 build at a time (for $50, you'll get a 2nd concurrent build, which you'll need as your team grows).

There's a couple of features that are listed for other products that aren't listed for CircleCI - not sure why they aren't listed:

\- Unlimited open source projects with full functionality. \- Has own headless browser support (albeit Firefox only). [actually, on CircleCI we also support chrome] \- Allows to cluster tests and run them in parallel. \- Seamless UI integration with GitHub.

Hope that helps! Happy to answer any questions too.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hi, Flo, Co-founder of Codeship here, let me know if any questions come up. Great and fair comparison of the three services, thanks Alex.

Regarding Codeship in the Blog:

* We do support open source repositories for free. There is no limits on how many open source builds you can run

* We have a strong UI to set up deployment to various providers and build complex deployment pipelines (didn't dive into that in the blog). The setup/test command ui is kept very simple deliberately as it's easy yet powerful through the web ui.

* Currently we don't support encrypted values, but that's a very important feature for us we want to get in soon

And we just launched a new Build details view yesterday which is much nicer than the old one. Currently talking to Alex to help him bring this into the Blogpost. There's also tons of new stuff coming up for us soon.

</comment><comment><USER4> Hmmm... No love for wercker.com ? That because they are still in beta?</comment>


REBOL language source code now on github - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rebol/r3

<comment><USER2> REBOL, along with the APL Family (APL/J/K) (and Lisp, but everyone knows that) is a language that makes you think differently. It's a revolution, rather than the evolution that is Java/C#/Python world.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Official announcement: <http://www.rebol.com/article/0519.html></comment>


Elon's goals for SpaceX - awesome - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOfj-k_Irpc&t=1m46s

<comment><USER2> Wow, he's really sleep deprived. Half of his sentences sort of drift away in the middle. He's constantly losing his train of thought.

Sort of badass to hold a press conference with NASA on no sleep, but I don't think it does much to bolster his company. He had a really hard time answering those questions.</comment>


I survived the Warsaw ghetto. Here are the lessons I'd like to pass on - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/05/survived-warsaw-ghetto-wartime-lessons-extremism-europe <comment><USER7> "Finally, do not ever imagine that your world cannot collapse, as ours did."

This.

People like to imagine that there is some kind of corrective force to history, some invisible hand that will, inevitably, push things into balance and restore normality.

There is not. Many times in history -- for many peoples, nations, and civilisations -- the world has ended. That is a completely normal thing to happen, albeit extremely unpleasant and very often lethal for those involved.

Things are not different this time. If civilisation survives, it will be because people have laboured with great difficulty and courage to _make_ it survive. It has always been thus, and always will be.

Do not take it for granted.

(Edit: unclear language.)

<comment><USER8> On the flipside, worrying that the world could collapse at any moment is not a way to live. If things are going to collapse, there is likely nothing you can do as an individual to stop it from happening, so why worry about it. As far as I can think of, all you can reasonably do as an individual to prevent this outcome is try to vote for decent political candidates and do your best to be good to the people around you. These are things that decent, responsible people do to begin with. I don't see how I could use this lesson in any other possible way.

<comment><USER9> > If things are going to collapse, there is likely nothing you can do as an > individual to stop it from happening, so why worry about it.

Because there are some incredibly easy, low cost things you can do to increase your odds of surviving a collapse. Most people aren't prepared to survive 2 weeks without a grocery store and electricity.

<comment><USER8> > Because there are some incredibly easy, low cost things you can do to > increase your odds of surviving a collapse.

Seriously? Even if you had extra food and water to last years, you're totally screwed as soon as people around you who have run out find out that you're hoarding all that. No matter what you had to prepare, if enough people get together they can always come and take it from you.

<comment><USER9> The key phrase here is "increase your odds"

If you don't have several days worth of water then you are well and truly fucked no matter what you do. If you do have several days worth of water then your odds of surviving just went way up, even if they still aren't great. The same logic applies to having food, first aid supplies, guns, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > If disaster comes, you will find that all the myths you once cherished are > of no use to you.

This spring I visited Notre Dame in Paris. I saw four soldiers patroling the street, spread out a few meters apart from each other, one finger close to the triger, barrel pointing to the ground. Reminded me of a patrol in a vietnam movie.

A similar scene I saw last year in Italy altough the soldiers were much more relaxed.

In Bern, Switzerland the Christmas market was protected by huge concrete blocks wrapped in gift paper.

This may be all security theatre. Or the times are really changing.

I found "On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century" a good read (the lessons, not the comment). I depends on us simple citizens to carry and defend civilization and avoid disaster.

<comment><USER11> Back in the 1970s, during the heyday of far-left terrorist groups, it was quite common for foreign tourists to be shocked at soldiers patrolling with guns in Germany or Italy. There may have been a lull in such things in the following decades, but what you saw is not particularly unprecedented historically and I wouldn't be too concerned.

<comment><USER12> Soldiers, patrolling with guns, in Germany... Are you sure?

<comment><USER13> To add some context, the German constitution states that the German military may not operate within German borders (with some exceptions, e.g. disaster relief during natural disasters). Seeing armed soldiers would be very out of the ordinary.

<comment><USER11> I do not mean soldiers _sensu stricto_ (German army) but Bundepolizei with heavy weaponry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> EDIT

Seen the backlash I'm getting with the comment, would like to clarify that what sparked it was this sentence:

> "No nation has a monopoly on virtue – something that many people, including > many of my fellow Israeli citizens, still struggle to understand."

Where the author seems to hint to consider all that follows himself.

TIDE

Very powerful message. I would really want to know what Aronson thinks about the situation in Israel with the Palestinians. Of course not to compare the fate of the Jewish people during the savage years of the Holocaust with this of the Palestinians. But Israel seems to have forgotten the humanity of the Palestinians, striping them from their human rights, or passing laws that could affect the rights of Israeli minorities [0].

Obviously condemning the actions of terrorists, atrocities committed against the people of Israel by Palestinians, and that deserving it's own discussion, just pointing out that because the number of dead Palestinian people is relevant enough and the author who fought for and lives in Israel, was speaking of when countries do dehumanize people and was hoping that in this case there would be voices in Israel that could disagree with the current situation.

[0] - [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law:_Israel_as_the_Nat...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law:_Israel_as_the_Nation- State_of_the_Jewish_People)

<comment><USER15> No offense intended (really!), but you're talking about a very complicated situation, which it appears that you don't really understand fully.

> But Israel seems to have forgotten the humanity of the Palestinians, > striping them from their human rights, or passing laws that could affect the > rights of Israeli minorities [0].

The situation of the Palestinians is terrible, IMO. But there is simply no simple solution that anyone has for how to solve it. Sure, some Israelis are terrible people, and are racist, etc, as are many Americans, Europeans, etc. But as a whole, the reason the Palestinian situation continues is partly because no one really has a good answer to how to solve it! It's probably also partly because Israel has more power right now, and the feeling is that the longer the situation continues, the better for Israel, so why not let it drag out? But if there _were_ a decent solution, many people in Israel would push very hard to implement it. The truth is, most Israelis just don't know what to do anymore (and solutions _have_ been tried before, negotiations have happened).

And btw, the new law that you talk about isn't really going to affect Palestinians so much as minority citizens of Israel (and it probably won't actually affect them either, it's more a symbolic thing I think).

> just pointing out that because the number of dead Palestinian people is > relevant enough and the author who fought for and lives in Israel, was > speaking of when countries do dehumanize people and was hoping that in this > case there would be voices in Israel that could disagree with the current > situation.

If you think there aren't voices in Israel who disagree with the current situation, you're very wrong. Unfortunately, as I said, many people have "given up", or at least have no idea what to do anymore.

<comment><USER14> No offence taken.

> But there is simply no simple solution that anyone has for how to solve it.

I think the problem can be less complicated if there is a sincere open conversation around it.

Let's put some context. In 1948 lots of people were dispossessed of their land and properties, this is still a very controversial thing that is very difficult to talk about. Just go to Jaffa in Israel and ask any Israeli person living in an Arab looking house how their family got to own it and you will realise how of a taboo subject this is. Of course there is no reparations or right of return in the pipeline of the talks.

So the first step to solve a problem is realising of it's existence. Instead, Israel seems to continue putting pressure onto the Palestinians with the appropriation of more land and the creation of more settlements [0].

[0] - [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle- east-45276555](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-45276555)

<comment><USER15> > I think the problem can be less complicated if there is a sincere open > conversation around it.

While I wish that was true, I don't think it is.

For one thing, I don't think the subject is nearly as taboo as you imagine - Israelis love to talk politics, after all!

However I think that most Israelis would disagree with your characterization of what happened in '48\. The (I think typical) view is that the UN decided to split Israel into two states, one for Jews and one for Palestinians. However, the Arab countries urged the Palestinians to leave Israel, as they were preparing to attack Israel. They attacked, Israel won, and ended up with _all_ the original land, with most of the Palestinians having fled to neighboring countries in the meantime. Israel didn't really do anything wrong - it simply won a war, which would likely have ended up with Israel destroyed if it had lost. Reparations wouldn't really make sense in that view. (That summary is basically my view of the history as I understand it, so assume the summary would probably be told differently by someone with a different opinion.)

The other issue with your statement is that even with open conversation around this issue wouldn't really change anything. At the end of the day, the right of return is something that simply can't be granted, not if Israel wants to remain a Jewish country, which is the entire reason it was founded (and in my view, in light of the historical precedents, a totally valid and moral reason). And Israelis simply don't trust the Palestinians with having a state right next to it - which probably doesn't matter much, since Palestinians don't appear to accept such a solution either.

So simply saying "well let's just talk about it and it will work out" is ignoring the fact that, no, there probably _isn 't_ a solution right now that both sides will find acceptable, unfortunately, and the structural forces of the situation are probably such that nothing will change anyway (e.g. as I said, Israel being in power and thinking it's probably better to delay action on this as much as possible, Hamas being in power in Gaza and preferring to keep the situation mostly as is).

<comment><USER16> > The (I think typical) view is that the UN decided to split Israel into two > states, one for Jews and one for Palestinians. However, the Arab countries > urged the Palestinians to leave Israel, as they were preparing to attack > Israel.

Haha. No. The UN decided to split _Palestine_ in two states, giving half of it to the Jews. Of course the Jews had everything to gain from this partition and the Palestinians everything to lose, since they were the sole owners of the place. Of course they rejected the partition and there was a war, but the Palestinians have been actively _expelled_ by the Israeli army. In fact, 200 thousand of them had already fled their villages _before_ Israel's declaration of independence, to escape from violence- episodes like that of Deir Yassin, where a Jewish commando massacred the inhabitants of a Palestinian village- women and children included-, throwing grenades inside the houses. It was a proper ethnic cleansing operation.

> Israel didn't really do anything wrong

No, as far as ethnic cleansing goes, Israel didn't do anything wrong.

> At the end of the day, the right of return is something that simply can't be > granted, not if Israel wants to remain a Jewish country

I agree with this. However, I also think that the right of return is mostly aspirational, and given good will on Israel's part, the issue could be just ignored long enough until it's not an issue anymore. By good will on Israel's part, I mean: establish a border once and for all (on the green line), abandon all settlements beyond that border, either renounce completely to Jerusalem east or share the undivided capital with a Palestinian state, completely remove the blockade of Gaza (and create a wide corridor between Gaza and the West Bank). Stop opposing the creation of a Palestinian state, and contribute to it with aids and reparations (that would make up for the right of return).

You'll say: this is a lot to ask from Israel. And it is, because Israel is currently enjoying great profits from its illegal and immoral actions, and there will be no end to the conflict until it decides to abide to international law and moral standards.

<comment><USER15> > Haha. No. The UN decided to split _Palestine_ in two states, giving half of > it to the Jews.

You're right of course, I misspoke, it wasn't yet Israel.

> Of course the Jews had everything to gain from this partition and the > Palestinians everything to lose, since they were the sole owners of the > place.

I'm not sure that's true - the territory was under British control, then was given over to the UN.

> Of course they rejected the partition and there was a war, but the > Palestinians have been actively expelled by the Israeli army. In fact, 200 > thousand of them had already fled their villages before Israel's declaration > of independence, to escape from violence- episodes like that of Deir Yassin, > where a Jewish commando massacred the inhabitants of a Palestinian village- > women and children included-, throwing grenades inside the houses. It was a > proper ethnic cleansing operation.

Look, this is, to say the least, disputed. I'm not going to say I know any more than you about this - and I think even the most pro-Israeli version of events would still leave a lot of Israelis looking pretty bad (Deir Yassin being one obvious and horrific example). Many of the more pro-Israeli historians will point out the calls from Arab leaders for Palestinians to flee, the pretty clear reasoning that if the Arab countries had won the war, most likely Israel would have been largely exterminated, given even more reason for the Palestinians to flee, etc. I don't either of us can know for sure just how much of the Palestinians fleeing was because of Israeli actions, real fear, imagined fear, or what.

Still, even after all this - is what happened so unprecedented by historical standards that leaves most people singling out Israel as a particularly immoral country? I mean, barely 3 years earlier WW2 had ended, in which _millions_ were killed, in bombing of civilian populations, in the use of nuclear weapons, and in many other ways. Do you consider Germany to be an immoral country today because of what they did during WW2? Or England, the States, Japan? What bothers me is the (seeming) double standard, where people consider Israel to be so much worse, for doing so much less than almost any other country. The main reason we're still talking about this is because there are a lot of vested interests in keeping the Palestinian population in their terrible situation (including Israeli interests, but not only!). The birth of Israeli was _far_ less terrible than many contemporary episodes (e.g. the situation in Syria, in which the death toll was sometimes as high as 10k per day iirc; not to say that this is the bar I set for Israel).

> By good will on Israel's part, I mean: establish a border once and for all > (on the green line), abandon all settlements beyond that border, either > renounce completely to Jerusalem east or share the undivided capital with a > Palestinian state, completely remove the blockade of Gaza (and create a wide > corridor between Gaza and the West Bank) [...] You'll say: this is a lot to > ask from Israel. And it is, because Israel is currently enjoying great > profits from its illegal and immoral actions [...]

First a minor point - the blockage isn't Israel's alone. It's also Egypt's.

Secondly - I personally agree with a lot of your points and wish Israel behaved differently. E.g. I think the settlements are terrible. I understand why many people support them from a real-politick perspective (and of course some support them from a religious/"greater Israel" perspective too). Many Israelis _don 't_ support the settlements, but the right has been in power here for a long time.

Still, you're ignoring the main issue for people like me - most of what you ask puts Israel at great risk. Splitting our capital, helping create a Palestinian state that's right on our border - it's pretty hard to do with a population of people who appear to be pretty hell-bent on killing us. Of course not all Palestinians would really want the destruction of Israel, and of course a big part of the reason they continue to attack Israel is because of their terrible situation, largely caused by Israel itself. That's the unfortunate reality we have to contend with - would _you_ agree to put a bunch of people who are currently constantly trying to kill you, right on your border, and give them total freedom?

Again, I'm not saying (nor have I ever said) that the situation is good - <USER2> think it's terrible. I just said that there are no simple good solutions here - and it's _not_ just a matter of "Israel needs to sacrifice" \- not when the sacrifice is opening up Israel to people who might kill 10s and even 100s of thousands of people.

Btw, just to give one example - Hamas is constantly smuggling in things through the border, and using funds given to aid Palestinians, in order to do things like build tunnels into Israel, to allow them to perform terror attacks on Israelis (usually - go in and kill a bunch of civilians). Under this circumstance - which is the reality right now - do you really not see why Israelis are reluctant to open up the borders _more_? It's pretty obvious that doing so will directly result in more Israelis being killed. Do I think steps like this must happen to bring about peace? Yes. But that doesn't make it easier to take these steps.

<comment><USER16> > the territory was under British control, then was given over to the UN.

It doesn't really matter who had control of it. Ireland wasn't any less of the Irish people when it was controlled by England, or Poland less Polish when it was controlled by the Nazis. The Palestinians lived there, therefore it was their land.

> the pretty clear reasoning that if the Arab countries had won the war, most > likely Israel would have been largely exterminated

You don't "exterminate" a country, you exterminate people. And I don't think the idea of the war was to exterminate the Jews, but to get back the country to their legitimate owners.

> Do you consider Germany to be an immoral country today because of what they > did during WW2?

No. I consider Israel immoral _today_ because of what it is doing _today_. Germany did unspeakable things, but it suffered all the consequences, and has paid to the last cent, and there is practically no relationship between what the country is today and what it was 70 years ago.

> What bothers me is the (seeming) double standard, where people consider > Israel to be so much worse, for doing so much less than almost any other > country.

I find it almost sweet that Jews seek their normalcy by trying to catch up on all the horrid stuff that other countries did before we could call them civilised by the modern standards. Jokes apart, what bothers me as a European observer is not only, and maybe not mainly, the substance of what Israel is doing. In your comment you mention Syria- and there are a lot of conflicts, ethnic cleansing and genocides going on in the world. What really bothers me is both the fact that Israel is a western country, and the level of support it gets from other western countries. There's a lot of people that get caught red-handed stealing, big deal; it's a completely different thing if it's a family member that gets caught, and then keeps insisting, beyond any plausibility, that he wasn't in fact stealing, that the purse was _disputed_. Pure chutzpah. I hope this expresses well my feelings.

> the blockage isn't Israel's alone. It's also Egypt's.

I'm not sure about this, but I believe that Egypt does it to appease Israel- what other reasons would it have for the blockade otherwise?

> Many Israelis don't support the settlements, but the right has been in power > here for a long time.

The settlements are the occupation of somebody else's land to settle your own civilian population in it. This is not just any political disagreement. It's _utterly unacceptable_. You should storm the parliament and the government until every single Israeli has been relocated inside the borders. How many people living in a settlement you know? How easy is to choose to do it because it's probably cheaper than renting of buying in Israel?

> it's pretty hard to do with a population of people who appear to be pretty > hell-bent on killing us

We were talking about de-humanising the enemy in order to better kill it. There it is. Palestinians are not hell-bent on killing you, they're rightly enraged for what you're doing to them. Stop doing it now, be cooperative, and their rage will fade. But of course it's much better to proclaim, as Israel does, that you'll be taking and taking until the Palestinians will stop hating you. Which is of course, never.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've been a member of some minority almost all my life. On more than one occasion I've been a refugee, a tourist, an immigrant, a high scoring student, the new person.

My rules for success as a minority.

\- If you are the minority, never forget this. Ever.

\- Don't congregate in a manner that excludes the majority.

\- Sure, be proud of who you are and where you come from, but remember that the majority are also proud and they have far superior numbers. So, be sure to operate in a manner that does not offend their pride: include them in your celebrations and be there for them in their time of mourning.

\- Be useful. Find ways to be useful.

\- Set your goals to be the best example of not just the minority that you belong to but the majority as well.

I've found that whenever a minority breaks one of these rules, they do so at their own peril. They needn't break any laws to gain the scorn of the majority.

</comment><comment><USER18> I agree that the current generation has lost the lesson of World War Two: that war is never a good option. I personally believe that part of the success of the us post ww2, and part of the really nice culture we had (sans racism etc) is because a huge number of men walking around knew what the end result of violence is. Nowadays, men are very quick to get puffy and to provoke conflicts. They are fools. If someone forced all those belligerent idiots to hide in a fox-hole and watch their buddy's head explode a few feet away, and all the rest, for months and months, they wouldn't walk around acting like tough guys.

I have seen the most profound violence imaginable, the worst you might see in a war. It has done nothing else than to make me an adamant pacifist. I can not articulate it correctly — all I can say is that at a certain level, violence does things to your mind that you didn't know about. It's just not comparable with human existence.

<comment><USER19> > I agree that the current generation has lost the lesson of World War Two: > that war is never a good option.

That is the exact opposite of the lesson of World War Two. The notion that war is not a good option and should be avoided by any means necessary is why it took six years and millions of lives to put Hitler down instead of what it would have taken to stop him before he finished building his war machine.

The "pacifists" of World War II were the traitors and collaborators who stood by and did nothing, other than surrender their armies and homelands and offer aid and comfort, as Hitler butchered an entire continent and murdered tens of millions of innocents.

<comment><USER20> > The "pacifists" of World War II were the traitors and collaborators who > stood by and did nothing, other than surrender their armies and homelands > and offer aid and comfort, as Hitler butchered an entire continent and > murdered tens of millions of innocents.

You know, the Germans said something similar about jewish "traitors" who supposedly caused their defeat in WW1, and this contributed to the build up to the atrocities of WW2.

"That war is never a good option" is precisely the lesson of war, forget about who are supposedly the good guys vs the bad guys. The countries that comprised the allied forces in WW2 have waged aggressive, unjustified wars themselves since then. Are you saying such aggression is the result of them having learned the right lessons from WW2? (i.e., to not be pacifist?)

<comment><USER19> The point I have to make here was made far more effectively by Orwell in 1945, so I'll just quote him:

> The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are > simply humanitarians who object to the taking of life and prefer not to > follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of > intellectual pacifists whose real though unadmitted motive appears to be > hatred of western democracy and admiration of totalitarianism. Pacifist > propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the > other, but if one looks closely at the writings of younger intellectual > pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial > disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United > States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only > violence used in defence of the western countries. The Russians, unlike the > British, are not blamed for defending themselves by warlike means, and > indeed all pacifist propaganda of this type avoids mention of Russia or > China. It is not claimed, again, that the Indians should abjure violence in > their struggle against the British. Pacifist literature abounds with > equivocal remarks which, if they mean anything, appear to mean that > statesmen of the type of Hitler are preferable to those of the type of > Churchill, and that violence is perhaps excusable if it is violent enough. > After the fall of France, the French pacifists, faced by a real choice which > their English colleagues have not had to make, mostly went over to the > Nazis, and in England there appears to have been some small overlap of > membership between the Peace Pledge Union and the Blackshirts. Pacifist > writers have written in praise of Carlyle, one of the intellectual fathers > of Fascism. All in all it is difficult not to feel that pacifism, as it > appears among a section of the intelligentsia, is secretly inspired by an > admiration for power and successful cruelty. The mistake was made of pinning > this emotion to Hitler, but it could easily be retransferred.

[https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell- foundation/orwel...](https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell- foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Although I broadly agree with the author that we should remember the past, I am sad that his tone suggests we are doomed to forget it.

<comment><USER22> Forgetting is a double edged sword, but one needed for us to live in the present. Living in the future or the past is what really opens up for hatred and fear. Unless something acts as a reminder how bad it really was, it will become fairy tales eventually.. "it couldn't have been that bad right?". But it shouldn't hinder us for trying to make it better in the future.

Edit: It's up to us all to prove the author wrong, it makes me sad when I talk to people that try really hard to wrap everything in lies to make themselves feel better. Maybe the starting point that dooms is when parents/states tries to smooth over horrible events.

<comment><USER19> It's hard to remember the lessons without remembering how we learned them, but it happens sometimes. The founding ideals of the modern world rose from the ashes of the Thirty Years War, and they stuck around pretty well even after that war passed from living memory.

Sadly, the lessons learned from the 20th century didn't even seem to survive that long. If anything, the very ideas that the 20th century utterly discredited are poised to overturn even the Enlightenment.

<comment><USER22> Back then we were relying on tales told from grandparents, or for that matter trades learnt from parents, it seems now that much i dissolved by mega industries or common databases/search indexes. Like we used to remember phone numbers but now it's not needed. Wikipedia can hold all the bad memories so we don't need to.

From an energy conservation perspective it's great. But how far should we let it go?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I took a class in college that only covered genocide, and if there is one single lesson I took away from that, it is that all of the worst atrocities in the history of the world grow out of a seed of convincing people that there are other people out there who are (for whatever reason) less than them and should be defeated. If those people are less than us, then the normal rules of decency surely don't apply and we should do all we can to win.

In the time since I took that class, I've made a giant effort to never attribute what I believe are wrong opinions or bad behavior to some inherent trait. No matter how reprehensible I think someone's opinion, I try to remember that they are a human and deserve decency. That doesn't mean we shouldn't fight for things we believe are right, but the second we start believing that we are fighting monsters, we become willing to do monstrous things.

In the US, there seems to be a growing urge to attribute most political opposition to some sort of ingrained difference and it seems impossible that this attribution could ever lead to any sort of resolution short of armed conflict.

<comment><USER24> _one single lesson I took away from that, it is that all of the worst atrocities in the history of the world grow out of a seed of convincing people that there are other people out there who are (for whatever reason) less than them_

Isn't that what most Police espouse? That there is a 'blue line' and they judge who is good and who is less than good?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_blue_line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_blue_line)

<comment><USER23> I don't think there's a conflict between being realistic about the fact that some people will do bad things and the belief that we can still be compassionate toward those people.

Obviously the main problem I'm talking about is more about when you decide a priori that whole groups of people will definitely do bad things and are therefore worthy of bad treatment regardless of whether they have actually done anything, but I think there are lots of police entities out there that carry out their duties professionally and compassionately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I know only one western country that in the last 50 years has shut a million people in a hermetically sealed ghetto; that installs its own civilian population in some other people's land, that shoots those who protest with live bullets, killing hundreds and injuring tens of thousands; and dehumanizes its victims every day with a "it's us or them" narrative. And it's not in Europe. Actually, it's Aronson's country, Israel.

I think that good lessons are valuable in themselves, wherever they might come from. But even to this there is a limit. Lecturing modern Poland on fairness and the lessons of the past while not even mentioning what your own country is doing is just shameless.

<comment><USER25> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Sarajevo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Sarajevo)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trnopolje_camp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trnopolje_camp)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars)

<comment><USER16> > I know only one western country that in the last 50 years has shut a million > people in a hermetically sealed ghetto...

You're right: I should have added: ...and that it's happily getting away with it, receiving applause, economic aid and unwavering support by the same powerful countries that like to warn about the lessons of history.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > My country and much of the continent was destroyed by lies

Just like the mountains of lies in our current globally-owned media is destroying our current civilization.

</comment><comment><USER27> > do not underestimate the destructive power of lies

When people are unwilling to hold fast to truth, that is when terrible things happen. When someone tells a lie, for example, "the reason you don't have a job and things are bad is because of those Jews". Or, "those Jews are not human - we have to protect ourselves". That is when people who would not normally do bad things do bad things. They can believe they are saving their country from destruction by sub-humans. They can believe that they are in fact performing a heroic action.

Some of the labeling heard today seems to be coming close to this, and with terrible consequences. People are losing their jobs, their careers, their ability to express their views, and their ability to practice their religious beliefs - all for the "greater good". Instead of respecting a person's inalienable rights - because they are a human that always deserves this respect - some people are telling themselves that it is OK to disrespect others to achieve some utopian state. This is the biggest lie.

<comment><USER28> Do you know the difference between a _lie_ and a _falsehood_?

I think it does a _lot_ of damage in the world, people labelling things as _lies_ when they merely think they're not true. It's very inflammatory. "That's a lie!" says not only "That's not true" but "and you know it". Which often is itself not true. Thus you could be accused of lying yourself.

Very often people are lied to in the media[0], then adopt false beliefs, which they then repeat - but they're not lying when they do so, they believe these things.

It poisons communication when this word 'lies' is thrown around loosely. People disagree about a lot of things. It usually doesn't mean they're lying about it. Usually you have no idea whether people you don't know are lying or saying false things they believe. How could you know that with certainty.

It's not even possible for a sentence to be a lie, in the way you seem to believe. A sentence uttered by a person, yes, but detach it as you did from any speaker, and it can only be true or false. A _lie_ requires specific knowledge in the mind of the particular person uttering the sentence.

[0]Whoops - see, I even did it myself. I don't know if that's right.

<comment><USER29> What's the use you see for the distinction? In practicality?

<comment><USER28> Well, that's a strange question. It's mostly how people talk to each other - we don't ordinarily hear e.g.

 _Teacher:_ What's 8+9? _Tommy:_ Uh..11. _Teacher:_ No, that's a lie!

It seems that particularly in heated political contexts, people enjoy calling false statements _lies_ , and don't notice or care that what they're themselves saying isn't true. The end justifies the means, anything that scores points in the fight is good, even the same or worse than what you're accusing the other guy of doing.

<comment><USER29> But in the context of this article, I don't think it matters if people truly believe in the madness, or if they purposely put themselves behind it. You still end up with atrocities.

Say Nazis weren't lied too, say all the way up, people really just had these false impressions.

You make decisions that affect others, you're responsible for them. If you made a mistake, used falsehoods as your basis for the decisions, and did atrocious things, or, you did them willingly, I don't know. They're both bad.

If thinking it's a lie pushes you to validate the truthfulness of your knowledge, then so be it. Even if you weren't lied to. It's all about that constant active search for the truth, and a certain amount of challenging what you hear, criticizing the so called facts, and looking a little harder.

Tommy should know better. If he goes on living with that false belief of numbers, he's a threat to society. He'll make wrong choices, miscalculation, and his judgment can't be trusted. The same as if he was a liar.

We should teach people this responsibility. You have to put in the effort to rid yourself of falsehoods and be a truth seeker.

Also, most people should be able to judge their confidence in their knowledge. A lot of people end up doing things even though if they spent a few minutes thinking about it, they would know that they're not sure about this. Yet they do it anyway. That's getting pretty close to a lie.

<comment><USER28> (Sorry, I didn't read the article.) Well, I find that point of view....extremely strange. Yes, people make mistakes, get things wrong. You can't learn without making mistakes. One definition of an expert is "Someone who's made all the mistakes there is to make, in a very narrow field." Lying is a whole other thing. If you don't know that, I'm not sure what to say to you. It's as if I'd said "You shouldn't correct children when they make mistakes". I think there must be some misunderstanding, because I literally can't believe you can't see the difference, or think it means nothing.

<comment><USER29> I think you should read the article, I'm talking in relation to it, and children is absolutly a terrible analogy for what I'm talking about.

I know its not the same thing. But I don't see how it matters to the article.

The article is about how falsehoods and lies can cause fear and lead to chaos (amongst other things). Such as what happened in world war 2, where countries turned against each others and targeted Jews.

In that sense, I don't think it matters, you believe Jews are responsible for all your problems and up to get you, so you go commit genocide against them. Does it matter if that idea was a lie or a falsehood? What if Hitler truly believed it? Okay, its a falsehood. So what? He just made a mistake? Everyone makes mistakes?

That's my point. How could all this happen? Suddenly, a falsehood or a lie turned rogue, doesn't matter, but somehow everyone has these ideas, and the whole world starts to act irrationally.

You're a politician, you need to validate your claims before claiming them. You should fact check, have a confidence ratio, justify yourself. You can't just go: "oh sorry, I guess it was false, I just didn't know" after you've already rallied, propagated and enacted laws and decree based on it. But it seems you're trying to claim that spreading falsehoods as a politician isn't as bad as spreading lies. Like if spreading falsehoods was okay. I don't think it is. It's just as bad, and can, and has, lead to great historical atrocities in the past.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I do no longer think that people actually learn from history. They do so if they percieve to gain a advantage from that, but the advantage of something "normal" like peace and prosperity in europe, is only visible in hindsight.

I think, people must be vaccinated against radicalism, again and again, by experiencing the outcomes for themselves.

If you are discriminated and robbed in your favorite online game, for no other reason then who you are or your name- without any success when appealing to the "state", you begin to understand what it is like to have been a jew in europe.

Another difficult fact remains- only the prosperity of the past and the nuclear weapons kept these dark tides at bay.

The politics, the memorials and the activism did & do nothing.

<comment><USER31> I hope you're wrong. Truly, redicliously incorrect. I fear you're right, or at least that you need to have a family member who was hurt by war to appreciate peace. I think the world's current swerve towards extremeism might be caused by the WW2 generation passing away and their children moving into retirement. Maybe in just one more generation we'll have all forgotten the horror and be ready for round 3.

<comment><USER32> Well if that's true the learning curve will be so steep as to resemble a cliff. I'm not usually a nuclear war alarmist, given that all players stand to lose, but which country capable of world war will lose gracefully without nuking someone? China? Russia? The USA? UK? It's a bit long in the tooth, but I think Einstein was right.

 _I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones._

<comment><USER31> Something I find interesting about WW1 was that it was preceded by a long period of general peace. During that period, we had been in the steep part of the industrial revolution's S-curve. Modern nation states had been solidifying their centralized power. The world was globalized and war was unthinkable.

Once war broke out, the participating governments seemed shocked at their new found power to wage total war, through their industrial economies, their rapidly expanding populations, and their amplified political power.

If such an unthinkable war were to break out today, our knowledge of our destructive capability is 70 years out of date. Who knows what atrocities we might accomplish.

<comment><USER33> War wasn't that unthinkable:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo- Japanese_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War)

They already feature such typical WW1 elements like machine guns, barbed wire, and frontal assaults on entrenched enemy positions (with the associated carnage).

<comment><USER34> Something on the scale of WW1 was considered unthinkable by many even so. And they had good reasons to believe it, because if you looked at the numbers, it simply didn't make sense - even in the best case, the material gains for the victors would be dwarfed by economic losses, mostly because of how involved international trade was between all the potential opponents.

There was a book, published 5 yeas before WW1, that argued that exact point. It wasn't obscure, either.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion)

These days, I hear very similar points - "China doesn't need a war with US, because US is its biggest export market", or, say, "Europe doesn't need a war with Russia, because it depends on Russian gas"...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> It seems the author is conveniently forgetting the atrocities Israel is committing.

<comment><USER36> To conclude that requires a very selective reading of the article, as he explicitly talks about his own country.

<comment><USER16> Explicitly certainly not. It only mentions Israel in a very passing reference: "No nation has a monopoly on virtue – something that many people, including many of my fellow Israeli citizens, still struggle to understand." Way too little.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Referencing modern Poland is uncalled for. At this moment this voice is becoming just another one in a dirty political quarrel. History is still being studied in Poland, no worries Mr. Aronson and Guardian.

<comment><USER38> Modern Poland is going the nationalist populism way. The article is very much called for, and it is needed.

We have a government that builds its ideology on the notion that Poland was always innocent and heroic, Poles were always the victims, we should be proud of our country, anybody who says otherwise is a traitor, leftist, marxist, or other kind of undesirable.

They build their support on historic resentment towards Germans (because WW2 but also because now they are leftists and want to put terrorists in our country), EU in general (because they are leftist and lie to us, they only give us money to abuse us, we would be better off outside), Jews (because they are lying that Poles were killing them and helping Germans in WW2, because they want our money from reperations, because they are behind every leftist conspiracy ever). Among the enemies of the people are also private media, NGOs, ecologists, liberal and socialist governments anywhere, liberal media. Whoever criticizes any particular thing government did becomes a part of conspiracy, and then it suffices to show that this guy is in any way connected to any previously ostracized group - and you can safely ignore whatever (s)he says.

There's this paranoia that people abroad say "polish death camps" and think that death camps were created by Poles. So they post every single mention in foreign media of the term, and there's public outrage.

There was a stupid law recently introduced that was punishing "blaming Polish nation or state for Holocaust or other crimes against humanity". It was unconstutitional obviously, but constutitional tribunal isn't working anymore. It was also stupid, because there were crimes against humanity done by Poles (although on small scale).

It was introduced, predictably Israel, USA, and others protested - <USER3> used it as a way to portrait everybody opposing this law as a traitor paid by Jews. That was the rhethoric. And USA obviously is only protesting because Israel forces them to (because government at once tries to show USA as an alternative to EU which is the big devil according to them, and to show that USA when it criticizes Poland is the enemy too). It's funny how they contradict themselves sometimes.

For like half a year the law was suspended, and government blamed everything evil on Jews for opposing it. There was a huge antisemitic campaign in the media, both traditional (public TV, radio, etc), and social media. People were posting every single story from WW2 where a Jew did something bad (because that makes Poles collaborating with Germans ok somehow :) ).

There was a 50 anniversary of 1968 expulsion of Jews from Poland by communist regime. Somehow, despite current government dislike of communists - <USER4> managed to make it look like 1968 was bad, but Jews had it coming.

USA blocked all high-level meetings between our governments, and that was the end of that. Government backpedaled, law was canceled. But the propaganda remains.

It sometimes feels like I'm in 1930s. Have you ever listened to Michałkiewicz or Grzegorz Braun? People like that always were there, but they were marginalized. Nowaydays their rethoric is repeated by prime minister and public TV.

It's terrifying to see my own parents buying into this crap. People who were always teaching me to be tolerant, not to believe government when it shows "these people are your enemy". Now they are repeating the same shit that is in TVP. Every few months there's new public enemy - from ecologists, through "homolobby", european courts, NGOs, private media, Jews, France, Israel, USA, Germany, Ireland. Everybody out there is just waiting to destroy our pure, innocent Poland.

That is bullshit, and the fact that people are buying into this is scary as hell. I will manage, I'm working in IT. I can go abroad and live well. But I'm also a patriot, and I don't want to move. And I'm very pessimistic about the general direction Poland took recently. It ends with isolated, marginalized Poland outside of EU. And that in turn ends with Poland going the Belarus way - as a "proudly independent" vassal state of Russia. I would very much want to be mistaken, but we're so far hitting every point on the checklist.

<comment><USER39> I've read your post twice, just to be sure I didn't overlook an "/s" marker, a wink emoji or something. It strikes me as a narrow view taken to extreme - entire vision of our country built up from referencing criticisms and verbal sparring. Political horse-trading, and back-and-forth doesn't a nation-state make.

That is neither substantive matter, nor the actual state of the country. Please, have a look around with me; consider multiple factors:

The economy's doing well, the country is not pushing towards Russia - <USER5> economically nor geopolitically; instead we've diversified trade and geopolitics; see the recent adventures with China. The political process is chugging along as it ought to, there's plurality of voices in the media and it seems to be growing. The political and economic protests & demonstrations are well attended and mostly well behaved. We've even managed to hold our own against EU's meddling in our internal politics, during recent changes to the judiciary. Oh, and we're one of the very few states in Europe that managed to weather the migrant crisis. Meanwhile we host - no, scratch that, we gainfully employ and well integrate with - a vibrant community of war refugees from our neighbor, the Ukraine.

If there's one thing I still seriously worry about, it's the retirement pension system. Frankly, I plan on avoiding relying on that.

Hey, we've on a better trajectory than our western neighbors, and we've made a few friends along the way. Cheers!

<comment><USER38> Economy has nothing to do with national propaganda spreading xenophobia and calling all opposition - traitors. 3rd Reich had much better economy than Weimar Republic (if not very sustainable). Besides - Poland is one of the few countries in EU that haven't had budget surplus in last few years despite the economic boom in EU.

> the country is not pushing towards Russia

Look at any independent rating regarding media freedom, rule of law, tolerance. We are changing towards Russia.

> we've diversified trade and geopolitics

yeah, from being "friends" with EU and USA we changed to what exactly? China isn't our ally, we're doing business, like we did before. Meanwhile we're completely marginalized in EU, and have no bargaining power in relations with USA (which was pretty well showcased during that crisis with stupid Holocaust law). Even if PIS doesn't want us to exit EU - it constantly portraits EU as the worst threat to Poland. Such propaganda may easily end with Poland leaving EU - see Cameron debacle. PIS is feeding extreme right to marginalize liberal opposition, same as Fides did in Hungary with Jobbik. Then PIS remains the "lesser evil". This is a very risky strategy, and is already hurting Poland.

> there's plurality of voices in the media and it seems to be growing

[https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom- press/2017/poland](https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2017/poland)

> Poland's status declined from Free to Partly Free due to government > intolerance toward independent or critical reporting, excessive political > interference in the affairs of public media, and restrictions on speech > regarding Polish history and identity, which have collectively contributed > to increased self-censorship and polarization.

Government openly talks about nationalization of foreign owned media. That's the plurality you speak of?

> We've even managed to hold our own against EU's meddling in our internal > politics, during recent changes to the judiciary

Or, if you aren't brainwashed - we managed to destroy independent judiciary and still remain in EU (for now). Great job.

> Oh, and we're one of the very few states in Europe that managed to weather > the migrant crisis

The rest of the European countries seem to exist as well. Maybe try to travel more :)

> war refugees from our neighbor, the Ukraine

These are war refuges like the +- 2 000 000 of Poles in UK, Ireland, Germany are war refuges. So - not at all. They are economic migrants, and benefit Poland much more than we benefit them. Still a good thing, but changes nothing.

<comment><USER39> >Besides - Poland is one of the few countries in EU that haven't had budget surplus in last few years despite the economic boom in EU.

Money remained in the private economy rather than in the central budget? Is that your point here?

>>>marginalized Poland outside of EU. And that in turn ends with Poland (...) - as a "proudly independent" vassal state of Russia.

>Look at any independent rating regarding media freedom, rule of law, tolerance. We are changing towards Russia.

Shifted goalposts. Of course we need to exit EU before the EU crashes. Good thing we haven't switched to euro yet, and we're building a competing block in the form of V4 _and_ external trade ties. Nobody here trusts Russia enough to go join their block; certainly we remember _history_ and _current events_ in there.

As for "low freedom, rule of law, tolerance" \- that's why I noted the government pays attention and reacts to peaceful citizen protests, while not heeding to EU's (and other external actors') pressure too much. That's how it's supposed to be ran in regard to internal politics. Facts over words, and if you still prefer the ratings ratings over observable reality, I have a bundle of 2006-vintage, AAA-rated mortgage-backed securities to sell to you.

>government intolerance toward independent or critical reporting

>excessive political interference in the affairs of public media

Public media are the minority of media. Every government packs KRRiT. The previous team wasn't any more neutral, it just was speaking in other tone. Which is the whole point of the OP - "is language representative of actual socio-political changes?" Wake me up when the nationalization gets any traction in the society.

>and restrictions on speech regarding Polish history and identity

Holocaust lies were prohibited in Germany and other countries well before in Poland. We're catching up in that regard, if anything.

>increased self-censorship and polarization

There's no discussion of police monitoring, nor of straight up delegalization of whole political party in Poland, again unlike certain western countries. We still seem to hold higher plurality standards, and for that we suffer from the Popper's paradox of tolerance towards intolerance to certain political options, as witnessed in this discussion.

>> We've even managed to hold our own against EU's meddling in our internal politics, during recent changes to the judiciary

>Or, if you aren't brainwashed - we managed to destroy independent judiciary and still remain in EU (for now). Great job.

Not a great job; I was disappointed in how it was rushed and kind of botched. Nonetheless, the point of protecting internal politics from foreign meddling still stands. Contrast that with, for example, Italy and Greece.

>The rest of the European countries seem to exist as well. Maybe try to travel more :)

With much weakened political scenes and societies split along partisan lines; with low trust and dialogues in the nation, and towards immigrants; with Chemnitz and all that. Meanwhile here in Poland we trade with the immigrants just fine, and when that one immigrant was attacked, it was huge shock to everybody, decried widely, and stayed in the news for several cycles.

>> war refugees from our neighbor, the Ukraine

>economic refugees (...) Still a good thing, but changes nothing.

It's an observable fact that we and them integrate just fine. While opinions peddled online would have you believe we are some sort of xenophobes by default.

Have a nice day, ajuc; I'm off to buy a coffee from Nadia at the Żabka.

<comment><USER38> > Money remained in the private economy rather than in the central budget? Is > that your point here?

My point was that Polish government is using nationalistic propaganda, and I'm pretty sure I was clear. Regarding economy (which is an offtopic you started) my point is, that the government increased spending to buy votes to the point that even at the peak of global economic boom we can't balance the budget. How will it work when the boom will inevitably end? It is not sustainable, especially not in the face of demographic crisis (and contrary to the propaganda 500+ isn't going to help - Poland still has negative net change of population, and it's getting worse).

But economy worries me less than the government playing with fire and supporting antiliberal, nationalist, xenophobic propaganda. Because economy you can fix in a few years. Fucked up society you're stuck with for decades.

> we're building a competing block in the form of V4 and external trade ties

V4 votes differently than Poland on vast majority of sessions in EU parliament. Any sort of V4 or "intermarrum" alliance as an alternative to EU or NATO is a pipedream. We have few common interests, potential candidates have no reason to ally us except on immigrants crisis, and even then we have little to offer them. And if we forced them to choose Poland or EU they will choose EU every time.

> The previous team [of public media] wasn't any more neutral

Demonstrably false. [https://i.imgur.com/NkSbLtm.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/NkSbLtm.jpg) Also with more details (but different period) [https://www.wykop.pl/wpis/22910245/pamietacie-zapewne-te- akc...](https://www.wykop.pl/wpis/22910245/pamietacie-zapewne-te-akcje-po-tym- gdy-w-tvp-zamaz/)

There was never such a biased public media in Poland since communism fell. Data says so, it's not subjective.

> Wake me up when the nationalization gets any traction in the society.

PIS supporters generally agree with the proposition to buy foreign owned media (and even some Polish independent media) by national companies. Government can do it very cheaply - making laws that make private media in Poland unprofitable, buying the media cheaply, then reversing the law. That's how Hungary did it.

> Holocaust lies were prohibited in Germany and other countries well before in > Poland

The problem is - Poland tried to prohibit some Holocaust truths as well. Also it's funny how even government admitted it was bad, and you're still defending it. More Catholic than the pope :)

> We still seem to hold higher plurality standards

No we don't. If you think we do please show data confirming it.

> [western EU survived immigration crisis] with much weakened political scenes > and societies split along partisan lines

Just like Poland, then? And we had no crisis to blame this on, just Jarek playing with fire.

> with low trust and dialogues in the nation

Poland consistently scores worse than western Europe (especially than Scandinavian countries) on rankings about trust in society and trust in public institutions. For example [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282817518_Social_an...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282817518_Social_and_political_trust_in_Europe)

> Meanwhile here in Poland we trade with the immigrants just fine

"3rd Reich integrated Austrian immigrants well, therefore they weren't xenophobic."

<comment><USER39> >Poland still has negative net change of population, and it's getting worse

I'll buy a vacation house on the cheap/s. Also, try convincing the greens that it's a bad thing. Also, try convincing anybody that with growing population we'd _somehow_ save our pension system. Or maybe we'll invite some immigrants from compatible cultures to work with us and integrate into the society. Oh well.

>the government playing with fire and supporting antiliberal, nationalist, xenophobic propaganda

Says the online panic. Liberalism is upheld, with pluralism; it's the "single political option or bust" mentality that gets rightfully criticized. Nationalism is what people want; you don't have to agree, but that's the price of living in democracy. Transferring that warm fuzzy feeling to the whole federal state of EU doesn't make it better or worse; it's just that - transferring it. "Xenophobic", nope; it's not "us vs them", it's "some ideas and cultures are specific threat by refusing to integrate, all others are welcome". Come on, don't you see the foreigners around you at work, at the mall, in the schools? Don't you have any immigrants in your social circles?

>V4 votes differently than Poland on vast majority of sessions in EU parliament.

Whole EU is made of countries with different economic and geopolitical interests, votes split and join all the time, and we manage a working consensus. You've just put forth example of the process working as expected, not of some sort of roadblock. What's the alternative - complete unity of opinions under one leadership? We've been there just a few decades ago, we don't want a repeat of that. Let's keep discussing and trying for the best option. That's how progress is made.

>Any sort of V4 or "intermarrum" alliance as an alternative to (...) NATO is a pipedream.

Wouldn't make geopolitical sense either. NATO is our best bet and we will stick with it, especially given the recently re-floated ideas of EU-ran army[1], which would effectively be an anty-brexit "police" stationed all over the EU. With no moderating influence from USofA, unlike NATO. As for V4 being an alternative to EU - I don't know. Maybe, hopefully. Better to make friends than to keep betting on one option that looks increasingly shaky. Especially as EU has this ugly habit of buying our allegiance with structural funds pumped into our economy, making us feel dependent on them.

>[stats about public media] You show proportional representation in the _public_ media of the governing fraction - back then, PO-PiS coalition, right now, PiS government. You made a point the public media reflecting the political reality. I naturally agree with you and chalk that down as system working as expected. Watch it change once the leading political fraction - <USER6> it always did. Worth repeating that _Public media are the minority of media_ in here; the majority of viewership and readership are the private ones.

>The problem is - Poland tried to prohibit some Holocaust truths as well.

Was that fixed? Great, process works as expected. Ask for a lot, bargain some, settle on what you really wanted. Politics 101.

>and you're still defending it

I didn't, and never will. I value freedom of speech above state-enforced truth. I am unhappy with legislating what is the official truth. The whole point of my post was that we're on a better trajectory than other countries. Not perfect, better. Reliable process grounded in our centuries-long democratic traditions[3] over centrally-managed perfection.

>> We still seem to hold higher plurality standards

>No we don't. If you think we do please show data confirming it.

We're having productive discussions across political aisles. We scream a lot, protest in Warsaw a lot, and continue to run the country. {edit}What we don't do is "don't talk to those people; deplatform those people; don't hire those people". For neither political, nor national/cultural factors of "those people". Which is a real problem in the internet-outrage-mob fueled countries{/edit} The political scene covers almost full left-to-right spectrum, and it is expected to swing the other way in an election cycle or two. We don't import antisemites en mass, and the immigrants here don't close up into enclaves; instead they live, work and play among us, speaking our language and marrying locally.

The most popular subjects among my politically-active friends are healthcare, pension system, and internet freedoms. Those aren't left-right, or nationalist-internationalist subjects; those are economic bargains we want to tweak and improve. Or, hopefully, overhaul. EU and immigration are somewhat distant subjects exactly because we managed to minimize the impact.[2] {edit}We appreciate GDPR and open market and other goodies from EU in the same sitting we criticize immigration quotas and umpteenth copyright extension and other hare-brained ideas.{/edit}

> Poland consistently scores worse than western Europe (especially than > Scandinavian countries)

Is your data showing Germany (re:Chemnitz) as unified and highly trusting their four-time PM? Is your data showing the french happy about soldiers patrolling the streets of Paris? Are the greeks and spanish trusting the government to run it efficiently and stand up to EU when proper to protect their interest? Are your sources glossing over the growing antisemitism in the west? Also, funny you should mention Scandinavia. How's that Swedish experiment with humanitarian superpower going? Please page me when our government issues civilians with leaflets on civil defense preparations. For now, concern dismissed with prejudice, due to biased sourcing.

> [Godwin's law]

Godwin's law.

\--

[1] [https://www.politico.eu/article/emmanuel-macron-angela- merke...](https://www.politico.eu/article/emmanuel-macron-angela-merkel- endorses-eu-military-plan/)

[2] I think a lot of people here gave up on the idea of government-ran highway system. Sad.

[3] an enjoyable read at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17781330](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17781330)

<comment><USER38> You continue to change the subject and skip inconvenient questions. When I ask for data behind your assumptions you just don't answer. When I provide data to support my assumptions you laugh it off basing on anecdotal evidence and start another offtopic. Yet, in the end you confirmed my point:

> Nationalism is what people want

Precisely. And it's because (among other things) government is actively working to make them want it. And it's a very bad idea, which was the whole point of the original article we discuss here. So mentioning Poland was totally justified.

With that settled I'm done with this discussion. I dislike talking with people jumping on 1000 tangentially related points when they can't answer it. It's a cheap and timewasting tactic.

<comment><USER39> I understand you don't like nationalism. Tough. Substituting its staunchly opposing ideology of _internationalism_ doesn't help at all, from historical perspective.

As for _> [changing subject, skipping questions, jumping on 1000 tangents]_, I opened up with the very reason: "It strikes me as a narrow view taken to extreme". I then went on to show that the broad socio-political processes work well in our country. Sure, there are some kooky outcomes here and there. We will fix them in democratic way.

Economics is of utmost importance; as long as voters perceive it as going well, they don't go for extremism promising a "quick & easy fix" that of course is neither.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Foundations of Computer Science - <AUTHOR> http://i.stanford.edu/~ullman/focs.html <comment><USER2> I downloaded and merged the individual PDFs into one file, you can grab it here:

[https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6428759/merged.pdf](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6428759/merged.pdf)

Edit: I did this using commands mentioned in some other comments and some Googling (this only works on OSX):

curl -O [http://i.stanford.edu/~ullman/focs/ch[01-14].pdf](http://i.stanford.edu/~ullman/focs/ch\[01-14\].pdf) && /System/Library/Automator/Combine\ PDF\ Pages.action/Contents/Resources/join.py -o ./merged.pdf ./*.pdf

<comment><USER3> Cool one-liner!

Might want to switch the last part of the command, though, as all other pdf files in that folder get merged in as well (learned the hard way) :-)

Something like this would probably be safer:

curl -O [http://i.stanford.edu/~ullman/focs/ch[01-14].pdf](http://i.stanford.edu/~ullman/focs/ch\[01-14\].pdf) && /System/Library/Automator/Combine\ PDF\ Pages.action/Contents/Resources/join.py -o ./merged.pdf ./ch[0-1][0-9].pdf

<comment><USER2> Sorry about that--I actually just created a new folder and moved into it before running the command, I probably should've mentioned that to prevent the issue you ran into.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> From the first paragraph of the first chapter:

> But fundamentally, computer science is a science of abstraction — creating > the right model for thinking about a problem and devising the appropriate > mechanizable techniques to solve it.

Too often in computer science education these days, this essential fact is lost.

<comment><USER5> So true. People at my school don't always realize that computer science isn't just about programming, it's truly a subset of mathematics.

<comment><USER6> Ok I'll bite. Why is "creating the right model for thinking about a problem and devising the appropriate mechanizable techniques to solve it" a subset of _mathematics_?

<comment><USER7> Because the mathematics is basically distilled, formalized art of precise thinking. It's the art of manipulating and morphing mental models. It's as much about numbers as astronomy is about telescopes ;).

<comment><USER8> Forming a model might not involve precise thinking, it often involves lateral thinking, at least with me.

I heard that computer science was more of a subset of music than math.

<comment><USER9> Higher math requires a great deal of lateral thinking. Also, music an math are often closely related but I don't see the connection between music an say computer vision.

<comment><USER8> Computer vision practitioners do mostly math, are we calling them computer scientists also? Sheesh :). Whenever I get in the same room with one, we are talking completely different languages (and we do have a sizeable computer vision team in our lab).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> ACM members once had a poll to resurrect a few classic CS books. That poll slowly became a "favourite CS books" list. This is the list: [http://t.co/LOli1BKFuL](http://t.co/LOli1BKFuL)

Some splendid suggestions there.

<comment><AUTHOR> great list!!!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I like that they share the lecture notes too. [http://i.stanford.edu/~ullman/fcsc- notes.html](http://i.stanford.edu/~ullman/fcsc-notes.html)

<comment><USER12> Oh, that's really awesome.

<comment><USER11> Amazing how much they've stood the test of time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Here are all of the PDFs compiled into a single one with correct page numbers, including the preface etc. [http://static.dyli.sh/Foundations%20of%20Computer%20Science%...](http://static.dyli.sh/Foundations%20of%20Computer%20Science%20-%20Al%20Aho%20and%20Jeff%20Ullman.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER14> Many people have posted the combined PDF on this thread. However, there is no way to economically print this PDF for self use. Lulu puts the limit at 740 pages and this book weighs in at 790+ pages.

Does anyone know of a cheap online printer that can print at around 2cents/page?

<comment><USER15> With that budget you can get there with duplex b&w laser printing onto standard copier paper. I guess you'd have to buy a binder, but still cheaper than lulu I would think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> We used the book for ECE 3020 - Mathematical foundations of computer Engineering at Gatech.

Lecture notes have been taken down, but here are our homework solutions: [http://users.ece.gatech.edu/~dblough/3020/solutions/hw_solut...](http://users.ece.gatech.edu/~dblough/3020/solutions/hw_solutions.html)

<comment><USER17> This is one thing about GaTech that really annoys me. Every professor seems to remove thier notes at the end of every semester and only post them when the content becomes relevent to the course. You cant look ahead and cant reference them afterwards.

<comment><USER18> > Every professor seems to remove thier notes at the end of every semester and > only post them when the content becomes relevent to the course.

might this be possibly done because there is not too much variation in course content from one sem to next ?

<comment><USER17> I'm sure this is the reasoning but it's a stupid reason. I joined a frat because they have a service where they upload all the notes by class and professor and that caused my average GPA per semester to jump nearly a point.

It's simply lazy, easy to game, makes crunches nearly unbearable, and interferes with the student's ability to learn.

It's also why GT while it has a reputation on par with MIT is actually a much worse school IMO. GT produces results because it lets a large amount of people in and them culls them out by being very difficult. Most GT students are very good at teaching themselves or finding groups such as the frat I'm with to get help.

CS Classes are often more of a hindrance than a place to learn and many of the 3+ students I know stopped attending most classes and are basically self taught my self included those who do go to class study while there and simply keep an ear out for hints about what may be on the test.

There are exceptions, especially after the sophomore year, but in general GT professors simply read aloud same notes for the last 5 years that have a very loose connection to what's going to be on the test.

<comment><USER19> "GT while it has a reputation on par with MIT"

This is not the case. Best not to repeat this claim.

<comment> barry-cotter If one is being extremely charitable (to the poster, not Georgia Tech) one could say that GATech is an elite engineering school but not super elite, like MIT. There is legitimate controversy over what the best university is for CS in the world. For what the top four are there isn't. They are CMU, MIT, Berkeley and Stanford. Georgia Tech has a really great reputation and every professor there is a very impressive researcher but it is not comparable to MIT.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Many many many thanks for this link. That's another resource in the bucket along with SICP[0] and MIT 6.00[1]. I'm gonna have a beastly year for learning.

[0][http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book- Z-H-4.html](http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-4.html) [1][http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and- comput...](http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer- science/6-00-introduction-to-computer-science-and-programming-fall-2008/)

</comment><comment><USER21> I was in the Stanford bookstore a few days ago and noticed their summer softback text for their summer Comp Sci 101 course was $132. It was about Java and basic computer principles together. It resembled a standard softback beginning Java reference book but with some exercises added to each chapter. Aho and Jeff have done a fine service offering their more meaty textook online gratis. (You dont even want to know what hardback texts cost- over $200.)

</comment><comment><USER22> Why so many books these days are available to download for free one chapter at a time. It just makes reading worse.

<comment><USER23> I just downloaded the entire book using ' wget -mkp [http://i.stanford.edu/~ullman/focs.html#pdfs](http://i.stanford.edu/~ullman/focs.html#pdfs) ' (Should work from any *nix systems having wget utility; I tried from mac) (explained here [http://opstribe.wordpress.com/2013/06/22/a-simpler-backup- me...](http://opstribe.wordpress.com/2013/06/22/a-simpler-backup-method-for- your-blog/) )

<comment><USER24> That gets a lot more than the book PDFs... You could do something like this just to snag the chapters:

curl -O [http://i.stanford.edu/~ullman/focs/ch[01-14].pdf](http://i.stanford.edu/~ullman/focs/ch\[01-14\].pdf)

Still less than ideal since they aren't one file. But it's easy enough to merge together.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Computer Science has come of age when textbooks from 20 years ago are about as relevant as they are today. That means there are now timeless principles in the discipline. Most of the computer languages used in mY MIT classes 40 years ago are not around today.

</comment><comment><USER12> Awesome book. I think we used this book in my CS days, but would have to check my notes.

Well timed post as well: We're adding more on programming fundamentals to our course at [http://www.thinkful.com/](http://www.thinkful.com/)

</comment><comment><USER25> Interestingly this was not the book we used in Al Aho's CS Theory course in 2011.

<comment><USER26> But what book it was?

<comment><USER25> I believe it was the one required here: [http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~aho/cs3261/](http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~aho/cs3261/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> From the preface (prerequisites):

> Students taking courses based on this book have ranged from first-year > undergraduates to graduate students. We assume only that students have had a > solid course in programming. They should be familiar with the programming > language ANSI C to use this edition. In particular, we expect students to be > comfortable with C constructs such as recursive functions, structures, > pointers, and operators involving pointers and structures such as dot, ->, > and &.\

Could someone recommend a resource for someone who is fairly proficient in Python?

<comment><USER28> The C Programming Language =]

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Would this be a good resource for someone who doesn't have a CS degree and who doesn't necessarily know the foundation of CS?

<comment><USER30> After skimming through it a bit, and as a CS student, this looks like an excellent introduction to the theory of computer science, especially for someone with no background in it. It corresponds with what I would expect a first or second year university course on Computer Science would cover. After reading some of this, if you're still interested in this sort of thing, the rather infamous _Introduction to Algorithms_ published by MIT press may be a good next step. PDFs can be found online with a bit of digging.

<comment><USER29> Awesome, thanks for the help and the additional resources!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I can't find any license. I wonder if the authors would allow someone to convert the book to epub or mobi.

<comment><USER32> In the meantime, I just used PDFtk:

pdftk preface.pdf toc.pdf ch*.pdf index.pdf cat output Aho_Ullman_1992_Foundations_of_Computer_Science.pdf

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Here is a version with all chapters merged into single file and Bookmarks/Outline links working correctly:

[https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4Hlagvt6wuTNGY5SlB3QlZQYTQ/...](https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4Hlagvt6wuTNGY5SlB3QlZQYTQ/edit?usp=sharing)

</comment><comment><USER34> Great book. It's amazing that after all these years the content is still relevant.

<comment><USER35> I mean, kind of, but not really. Math textbooks from the 60's are still relevant today, so why would computer science be sufficiently different? I can see that there are new concepts and whatnot, but there hasn't been any kind of fundamental change in thinking. I wouldn't expect there to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Many of the same questions when discussed here previously. Still no epub which is a shame..

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1450633](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1450633)

</comment><comment><USER5> This seems like a great book just from skimming a few chapters, I'll make sure I spend more time with this later. Thanks for posting.

</comment><comment><USER37> Oh man, I remember this book. My university uses it for a sophomore level CS course.

</comment><comment><USER38> Also used this book during university. We all had to print it out on a printer.

<comment><USER39> And I just discovered that I'm still a university computer science department system administrator: Every fiber of my being screamed, "Dear god, no! Use the Copy Center!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Is there an epub available?

</comment><comment><USER41> This is fantastic. Thanks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER42> Very awesome book!

</comment><comment><USER43> thanks

</comment><comment><USER44> 1992 - a world without Java...

And, you know, _the_ book about foundations is... SICP.) OK, this is _C Edition_.

<comment><USER45> if

        "computer science is a science of abstraction — creating the right model for thinking about a problem and devising the appropriate mechanizable techniques to solve it"

then

        language is of no importance

<comment><USER18> > language is of no importance

well, you are just being facetious, and i guess you know it too. languages are part of 'devising the appropriate mechanizable techniques to solve it' as well as algorithms & data-structures which support the abstractions that you just came up with...</comment></comment></comment>


How to Build Your First Neural Network Using Keras - <AUTHOR> https://valueml.com/how-to-build-your-first-neural-network-using-keras/ <comment><AUTHOR> How to Build Your First Neural Network using KERAS</comment>


Microsoft Edge Team Reddit AMA - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/c094uf/hi_reddit_were_the_team_behind_microsoft_edge_and <comment><USER2> As expected no answer to the questions asking why they sold out the web and handed more control to google.</comment>